Way Back When

Way back when we were little children we used to be excited about going home from school or the weekends so we can play with our neighbors outside. We used to interact with people socially using physical means, we were more athletic, more active and we get dirty because we play outside.

Now when I look outside my window, when I go outside the house I wonder, Where are all the kids? What happened to us that we let our children just stay inside to just watch tv or play computers? We used to be more alive and sociable.

I know the blistering heat is not helping us much, we want to protect our kids from the sun, from diseases, from germs and some mothers even wants to protect their kids from sweat. But it makes me wonder what will happen to future generations if these keep up.

Let us not blame the technology for developing, for our kids wanting to just stay indoors and just play PSP or Xbox or the computer, it is not technology’s fault that it keeps developing, it is not the computers fault why kids are becoming more and more unhealthy. We as parents should encourage our kids to go outside and play. They will not learn the fun activities we used to love when we were kids if we don’t teach them. We cannot rely on other people to teach our children how to run or how to interact, we should encourage them. We should start by inviting our neighbors kids to play with us and our children and teach them the wonderful games of Patintero, ten twenty, Chinese Garter, agawan base, Cops and Robbers, luksong tinik, luksong baka, tagu-taguan, Monkey monkey anabel, pesi seven-up, mother mother may I cross the river, touch ball, kick ball, tumbang preso, langit lupa and all the other kid invented games that we used to play. Let us relive our childhood once in a while and teach our kids how to play the games we used to love, otherwise it will just remain in the past and kids in the next generation will just hear stories about them.

Let me remind you of the basics of some of the games we loved:

PATINTERO - it can be played by 4 or more kids, we mark the street with chalk, we trace rectangles on the road that has a distance of over 2 meters per child. 

Image Courtesy of (http://fil.wikipilipinas.org/index.php?title=Patintero)

There will be team mates which can be a minimum of 2 children per team. Once the teams have been decided the “Mother” which is also the leader of each teams will then compete on who will be the first “Taya”. The Taya will be the team who will stand on the lines and try to touch the other teams player when they are trying to cross their lines to go from the other end back to their HOME.

Ten Twenty - A game more commonly played by girls, but ofcourse boys can join in the game too. It consists of two teams each having a minimum of two players. The Mother or the leader of each team will have to determine which team will be the taya and which team will play first. The Taya team will stand parallel and facing each other with a garter wrapped around both their feet where the Playing team will start on the lowest level which means where the garter is around the Taya’s ankle.

Chinese Garter - Another common girls jumping game where two teams compete by jumping over the garter - sort of opposite the limb-o-rock, this starts at the lowest level which is usually level with the Ankle of the Taya upto as high as the teams want the garter to be, once the players fail to jump over the garter then the Taya team will become the playing team and the cycle goes on.

Tagu-taguan - Is a very easy game to understand and people from around the world play this as well, in english it is called Hide and Seek.

Touch Ball - Is the Filipino rendition of Dodge ball, but in this case the two teams will not be throwing balls at each other, instead the Taya team will stand on both ends of the playing field and the playing team will be in the middle. The taya team will be holding one ball and they will try to hit the playing team one by one to eliminate each player. If the Playing team in the middle avoids the ball that is thrown at them three times, one of their Hit / injured players who was thrown out of the game earlier can come in to defend themselves, but once all players have been hit, its now the Taya teams turn to be the playing team.

Kick Ball - This is a lot similar to baseball but instead of hitting the ball with a bat, the player will kick the ball and run to the bases.

There are so many other fun activities that we can teach our children, so many of them can be played with parents as well. So I encourage all of us parents to pick a game this weekend and teach our children how to be lively and sporty by letting them get to know our childhood games.